Disremember
by bandedbulbussnarfblat
Summary: It's fairly advanced magic, but Marina is a talented witch, and no card carrying magician would be willing to do this for him. He needs a hedge, and one he can trust. Strangely enough, that's Marina in this case.


"Q, you don't have to do this, there's still a chance-"

Julia's voice is desperate on the phone; he can Penny in the background asking where he is. Out of all of them, Penny is the one who should most understand. He lost Julia once, a different Julia, from a different time, but he had a chance now with this Julia. This Julia who was different, but still the same, who he had a shot at being with, who he knew worked with him because she already had.

Quentin thinks if his Julia, this timeline's Julia was the one possessed by a monster Penny might do the same. It would be easier to do what had to be done. There would be no other way to do it. Not like this, never like this; it would kill him. And he would let it, he'd rather did than give up on Eliot. But it wasn't just him that would die if they didn't stop this. It wasn't fair, but when was anything in his life ever fair?

"Don't bother casting a locator, this place is warded against travelers." He hangs up before Julia can respond; she's already tried to talk him out of this, he isn't interested in hearing more.

The door opens before he can knock. "You're late." Marina says, frowning.

Quentin follows her inside the apartment. It isn't what he expected, it's small and cluttered and bright, homey and inviting. "My girlfriend picked it. She likes things simple: I like her."

Marina leans against the kitchen island. There's books spread there, the sort that deal with memory magic. It's fairly advanced magic, but Marina is a talented witch, and no card carrying magician would be willing to do this for him. He needs a hedge, and one he can trust. Strangely enough, that's Marina in this case.

"You-the you from here-you did something like this before to Julia. You made her forget something."

"Right, something she wanted to forget." Marina looks him over. "People repress memories all the time without the help of magic. Trauma does that to a person. Julia didn't need me to forget, she needed me to fill in the gaps with something worth remembering."

Because Julia wouldn't stop picking if there was nothing there to replace it. Even if it hurt, she'd keep coming back, picking at the wound just to see what made it bleed. It was who she was. If there was a question there had to be an answer, she had to _know_. Quentin isn't like her. His mind is too ready to accept the worst case scenario as truth; he'll have no trouble accepting this.

"What I want you to erase didn't technically happen. I mean it did, but in an alternate timeline."

Marina arches a brow at him. "An alternate timeline? Like the one me and your traveler friend came from?"

"No, like time travel. It think. I don't know how I remember it, but I do."

"So what are we talking about here? Murder, maiming, rape, torture? What could be so bad you'd come to me to forget?"

"A life. 50 years. I had a family, I had...I was happy."

Marina shrugs. "So go make a family and be happy here."

"That isn't really an option."

"Is it Julia? Her and Penny's star-crossed destined love through a wrench in your plans?"

"Wh-no, Julia isn't, we've never- No. It isn't Julia." Quentin swallows the lump rising in his throat. If Marina is going to do the spell, she has to know the truth. She'll be intimately acquainted with his memories by the end. "It's Eliot."

"Eliot, whose a meat suit for a god killing monster?" Marina steadies her gaze at him and her tone loses its glibness. "I get it, okay. I lost my girlfriend in my timeline, then I lost her for good. But she's alive here and I have her back."

"Then you know. I can't watch him die again. I need to forget,so I can stop him before it's too late."

"You want to kill him."

"It's the only way." Quentin says, "He's trapped in there with that thing and we can't save him. But if he dies, at least he can be free. At peace. I can give him that. He deserves at least that much."

"Fifty years is a long time. This isn't just some memory you can pull out and hide away. Even Brakebills can't store that many memories. Once they're gone, no take backsies, they're gone forever."

Gone forever. All his memories of Arielle and Teddy and the grandkids. Of growing old and watching his family grow. Of falling in love with Eliot, again and again through years, finding new little things to make him love him more and more. Of fighting and laughter and comfort and pain and _home_. An entire life, his best and most happy memories.

But he can't let go if he remembers. He can't stop the monster and he can't free Eliot. He's already failed him once; he can't fail him again. "Do it."

"You're sure?"

"Make me forget."


End file.
